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Day 16 – Deeper in the Watt Market (Sep 12)
Today is Saturday so the IBM team is in full exploration mode … unfortunely the Cultural centre was closed so we headed to the Calabar Museum which was next on the list. We learnt about the first interactions between Europeans and Calabar residents which led to the establishment of trading ports for British ships en-route for India. The museum provided great insights, many pictures and a few artefacts of the triangle of trade between Europe, Africa and the New World, slavery, colonialism and the Berlin conference where European countries agreed on territory allocation in the African continent.
I then spent two hours roaming around the Watt market looking for ready-made Nigerian clothing and wax fabrics … I didn’t find any of the former and there was too much of the latter to choose from ! The main highlight for me was to walk through the central part of the market where all things edible are traded: nuts, vegetables, fruits, palm oil, fish and meat in a suffocating mix of heat, smells and humidity. Meat, tripes, stomachs and intestines were particularly appetizing lying raw on wooden plancks … we were told by a couple of stalls attendants that they were all cow products, not entirely convincing if you saw the donkey head that was smiling at us nearby !
Another important discovery ... what I thought was chargrilled black fish is actually the smoked catfish we have in edikang ikong and other soups. Doesn't look too appetizing in a ratan basket but it's actually very tasty once at the table !
Today is Saturday so the IBM team is in full exploration mode … unfortunely the Cultural centre was closed so we headed to the Calabar Museum which was next on the list. We learnt about the first interactions between Europeans and Calabar residents which led to the establishment of trading ports for British ships en-route for India. The museum provided great insights, many pictures and a few artefacts of the triangle of trade between Europe, Africa and the New World, slavery, colonialism and the Berlin conference where European countries agreed on territory allocation in the African continent.
I then spent two hours roaming around the Watt market looking for ready-made Nigerian clothing and wax fabrics … I didn’t find any of the former and there was too much of the latter to choose from ! The main highlight for me was to walk through the central part of the market where all things edible are traded: nuts, vegetables, fruits, palm oil, fish and meat in a suffocating mix of heat, smells and humidity. Meat, tripes, stomachs and intestines were particularly appetizing lying raw on wooden plancks … we were told by a couple of stalls attendants that they were all cow products, not entirely convincing if you saw the donkey head that was smiling at us nearby !
Another important discovery ... what I thought was chargrilled black fish is actually the smoked catfish we have in edikang ikong and other soups. Doesn't look too appetizing in a ratan basket but it's actually very tasty once at the table !
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